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March 22nd, 2006: Great idea but price will still see hard disk ruling the roost for the foreseeable future.

Leap-frogging the 16Gb NAN flash drive that it announced a year ago, Samsung has previewed a massive (by consumer Flash drive standards) 32 gigabyte NAND flash drive for laptops.

Flash technology has some substantial advantages over hard disk when it comes to mobile storage: it uses 5 percent of the power required for the incumbent storage; it weighs less, and is more robust.

However, it also presents one big problem - despite the current over-supply being driven by mobile phones, iPods and other consumer multimedia devices - and that is cost. A quick look at the Australian market serves up a 20Gb laptop hard disk at AU$71. The price for the 32Gb NAND flash drive would appear (pricing is far from accessible) to be in the region of AU$2,200.

The equation between battery life, speed of boot, weight and robustness divided by hard, cold cash is till, in IDM's opinion going to see Samsung - as well as every other manufacturer in the market - previewing NAND-based laptops for a while prior to major channels stocking them. However, someone once said that 640k of memory would be all we'd ever need.

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